Microsoft Understands Its Windows 8 Mistakes, Finally

At Build conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer acknowledges that aspects of Windows 8 have bugged users -- and promises to address the issues.

10 Hidden Benefits of Windows 8.1

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On the tables inside the press room at the Microsoft Build Conference -- a room full of computer-savvy tech press and industry analysts -- lay printed instructions for how to complete a Wi-Fi connection in Windows 8. Just Windows 8.

"Enter Desktop Mode by pressing (Windows Key) + D," the 8.5 x 11 Wi-Fi lesson began. In contrast, the clerk at my hotel handed me -- and anyone else with a reservation -- a fortune cookie-sized slip of paper that provided nothing more than a SSID and network security key.

I noticed a few others who picked up on the irony. Like me, they chuckled to themselves, and then snagged a copy of the how-to as a novel keepsake from this watershed moment for the software giant. The event staff quickly replaced each one that had been plucked from the tables, ensuring that no journalist would have to undertake the endeavor without one.

Indeed, the photocopied tutorial serves as a comical exclamation point to what CEO Steve Ballmer tried to drive home during his opening keynote address: that Microsoft gets it. And it's doing something about it.

Ballmer told attendees Wednesday that the company has gotten the message that Windows 8 has been a difficult adjustment for many users. The feedback, "in coffee terms," he said, was "why don't you go refine the blend here?"

That's an awfully magnanimous way to put it. But no matter. The important thing here is that the company's fixing what's irked users since the day the maligned OS was announced last October.

Developers cheered Wednesday when Ballmer told that them that they'd get their precious Start button back, and that they could boot straight to the desktop if they wanted to. They cheered louder for those two items than just about anything else, save for the tablets Microsoft promised to give them. And, possibly, for the news that the Microsoft Store finally -- finally -- is getting Facebook.

Microsoft also seems to be trying to mend fences with PC OEMs. It needs to. Some OEMs are still frosted today, almost exactly a year after Microsoft surprised them with news of the upcoming Microsoft Surface line. Several PC makers that were working closely with the company on Windows RT devices felt that Microsoft betrayed their trust by developing hardware to compete with them, yet didn't see fit to tell them about it until just a few months before release. Acer, in particular, was pretty vocal about its displeasure.

As well, many OEMs feel ignored by Microsoft because the company hasn't bothered to align the timing of OS releases with today's hardware cycle, as I pointed out last month.

Ballmer didn't specifically say he would rectify that, though he offered a ray of hope by promising to pick up the pace of Microsoft product releases. "Rapid release! Rapid release!" Ballmer said, delivering the message in trademark machine-gun style. "You can think of that in a sense as the new norm."

Windows 8.1 Release is a joke, a slap on the face of the consumer. The start button is good for nothing since it does not open an alphabetized list of programs, but the stupid cover-all metro screen. The local account is basically disabled, since you need to be on an online MS login to use those stupid apps; If you are on the subway and want to read the NYTimes and later type a report, you need to log off and log in to another account. The Windows 7 backup utility was substituted for a file backup utility, which makes it impossible to restore the whole system in a more effective way. Anyway, there are a couple of improvements, but the stupid apps still take over the whole screen, and you cannot treat them as independent, movable, minimizeable windows. To do so, you need a third-party software called ModernMix by Stardock. IOBit makes a great Start Menu (a real one). Summarizing, Windows 8 is doomed, and MS is the only guilty party here.

The Start BUTTON was not what users wanted! What Microsoft put back was a button to the ugly Metro screen.The Start MENU is what users wanted, plain and simple. The Start Menu was a hierarchically organized interface to programs in alphabetical order, something like having your books neatly organized on the shelf.No, says Microsoft. We know better! The new way is to take your books out of the shelf and lay them out flat on the floor in no particular order.And the Start Button replacement in Windows 8.1 doesn't replace that functionality.Why, oh why doesn't Microsoft simply add a Desktop Mode with Start Menu option that end users can choose or not based on their desires? Does Microsoft want customers or hostages?

All that said, I've been using Windows 8 for six months in desktop mode very nicely thanks to an Open Source start menu replacement. There are several replacements from Open Source and Proprietary developers, but why does Microsoft stubbornly insist on forcing users to third party providers to get the very simple solution that makes Windows 8 workable on the desktop?

What is the business motivation behind trying to force users to the ugly Metro desktop? What innovative goal is advanced by keeping users from using a start menu? Or is it Redmond's same old hegemonic aspirations at work again?

I just counted 68 folders on my Start menu and most of them have sub-folders. Easily over 500 menu items. Now Mr. Balmer, just how is Metro supposed to handle all of that?? Just look at the ugliness that is created when you just install Office on Metro. It is major mess. How can anyone call that reasonable, let alone usable. Quite frankly, Win 8/8.1 is absolutely unusable without a 3rd party Start menu tool.

Ummm. HTML5 was written by Opera, not Apple. Silverlight is a Flash alternative, better than Flash but still equivalent to HTML5+javascript (or rather ecmascript per MS). Apple fought off Flash (they have Cocoa) and Android uses Java Micro Edition clone for display and animation (in user mode; MS made Silverlight like Flash: requires System permissions). Besides, .Net is what killed off Silverlight internally.

Did you like Vista (codebase 6.0)? Well Win8 is still codebase NT6.2 (System bug KB articles with "to be fixed in 6.0" still aren't fixed in Win8). They can call it "Windows 9" but I will wait for codebase 7.0.

Not sure if microsoft understood the mistakes or we can say heard us. as Start button is pretty much useless, i see people already looking for a way to revert back to the old windows 8 style where they were atleast able to install third party tools. Boot to desktop is also goofy. Silly part is microsoft allows us to use desktop wallpaper as start menu background, thinking that we would think we are still on desktop :-P